The Angels of Our Better Beasts

The Beasts have plans for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. But you’re going to have to trust them.

The Lemmings are really researching the Arctic biologists, the werewolves sing sweet Christian praise songs, and the signing gorilla just wants someone back in the cage for a minute or two. The Gryphon can fight your war for you, and there isn’t really a problem when the man you’ve been online dating turns out to be a bear, is there? No worries. Those old lions in the canyon aren’t up to something, are they? The doctors in the red coats just want to cure you of a terrible blood disease. Trust them. In the forest, the sasquatch has fallen in love with the cryptozoologist who follows him, while the god of the Brazos River courts the young, pretty Texas college students.

These fifteen illustrated stories of beasts—and the beasts we sometimes become—ask us how much influence we have over each other, to bring out our beast sides or our best sides . . . and how much control the beasts already have over us.

“[E]asily one of the best collections by a single author I have ever read.”—Black Gate

“Throughout the book, I appreciated Stueart’s dry, often dark, situational humor, and his skillful, sympathetic characterizations. The stories were remarkably varied, more so than I typically find with single-author short story collections. Some Christian readers will be uncomfortable with some of the material; but if you didn’t think anything in the Mysterion anthology went too far, you’re unlikely to feel overly alarmed by anything here (the reverse is probably true as well). And, although few of the selections deal explicitly with Christian or Biblical themes, those that do make Stueart an author well worth following for those interested in contemporary speculative fiction in this area.”—Kristin Janz, Mysterion